


ELEA

by christinefromsherwood



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror, Mystery, or attempts to be one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 16:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2857214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/pseuds/christinefromsherwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was dark when she opened her eyes. Not the kind you see out in the street in a secluded corner away from the streetlight, not the kind that shrinks away at any wisp of wind, click of a stiletto or a stray ray coming out from the shuttered windows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ELEA

**Author's Note:**

> This is for you, Eleanor.  
> You asked for a horror and somehow this is what came out when my brain thought "We're writing a horror.", though I'm not sure how scary it shall turn out to be.  
> It seemed scary to my brain as I wrote it, so I hope it won't disappoint. 
> 
> Merry Christmas, [Eleanor ](http://loki-loving-wolf-witch.tumblr.com/)

It was dark when she opened her eyes. Not the kind you see out in the street in a secluded corner away from the streetlight, not the kind that shrinks away at any wisp of wind, click of a stiletto or a stray ray coming out from the shuttered windows.

It was pitch black, truly. For a while she couldn’t even be sure that she had indeed opened her eyes, she could not see one inch in front of her face.

“Have I- have I gone blind?” She didn’t bother to lower her voice, or at least that’s what she thought. However, it came out as a whisper. As if… as if the darkness before her swallowed the higher frequencies as it spread and wrapped itself tightly around her like an enormous black boa constrictor, slowly squeezing ever so tighter, stealing away her breath.

She reached out her hand.

Tried to.

Couldn’t.

She got as far as unwrapping her arm from around her bent knees and then she stopped and took a deep breath as she felt the cold feeling of dread slowly seep through the tips of her fingers and settle heavy on her chest. She couldn’t move her hand beyond taking it of her knee.

There was nothing stopping it, no physical barrier, nothing she could feel at least, but she couldn’t move her arm - either of her arms, or legs.

The darkness swayed in front of her eyes as it wound itself tighter around her, chilling the blood in her veins, slowly spreading with each beat of her heart ever closer to it.

“HELP!” she screamed and not a sound came out. She yelled and cursed and wondered if she had gone deaf, but what strange sort of deafness would it be not to hear your own voice, but hear your panicked, wheezy breaths coming out instead.

“HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME, PLEASE!” she sobbed out silently. It was the first time the thought of other people occurred to her and with it came another chilling realisation.

“MUM! MUUUM! Mummy, where are you?!” She started screaming on top of her lungs, her vocal chords stretching and burning before giving out into what she felt was a quiet rasp.

 It was no matter, no matter what she did, no sound came out of her mouth and her mother wasn’t there.

But she was sure that wherever _there_ was, her Mum should have been also. She was as sure about that as she was about not going blind, or deaf. As sure that something went horribly wrong when she went to bed yesterday. This wasn’t supposed to be happening to her, not to her. She knew it, just as she knew that her mother wasn’t there anymore.

“LET ME OUT!” she screamed as she felt a wave of fury rise inside of her and then die out just as rapidly. She couldn’t bang her fists against her prison walls. There was no prison, there were no walls. She couldn’t lift her arms. It was hard to stay angry when you were curled into a ball.

She closed her eyes as she felt them well up and as tears started to fall and freeze to her cheeks, she felt strangely comforted by the familiar darkness of her own eyelids. She wished she had closed them sooner.

It wasn’t cold and as she lay, keeping her panic at bay with her closed eyes, she allowed herself to wonder at her frozen tears. It wasn’t cold in the room, it was her own skin that froze the tiny droplets of salt water to her cheeks.

Her entire body jerked and her eyes flew open in surprise as two consequent clicks resonated through the space around her. In front of her, almost as if tattooed on her very eyeballs, there appeared two red dots of light, one on the right and one on the left. The darkness was overcome!

They were growing closer and brighter by the second and her feeling of eletaion soon abated as ELEA and 0:30 filled out the entire space in front of her eyes.

With the darkness behind her, keeping her firmly, resolutely in place and the red lights in front of her, she started to shake; the all-consuming, involuntary shiver that terrorized all her muscles. She tried to close her eyes, but realised that she couldn’t any more. There was no escaping ELEA and the timer.

0:28

Before, she wondered if maybe she had died and this was hell. This now seemed unlikely.

0:20

Whatever this was, it seemed entirely man-made. No god would bother with a timer.

0:18

What was happening?!

0:15

Why was there a timer?

0:12

And more importantly, what was the point of it, what was it counting towards?

0:08

Whatever it was, she knew it could be nothing good. No good things ever came from a countdown.

0:05

Except for the one at New Year Eve. Somehow she doubted that she would be able to live to see another see when the clock hit zero. And she knew that her Mum wouldn’t.

0:02

“LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OU-“

 

ON AIR


End file.
